The Human Person: Animal and Spirit

by David Braine. 560 pgs.

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publication details

Contributors:

David Braine

Publisher:

Duckworth

Place of Publication:

London

Publication Year:

1993

Subjects:

Philosophical Anthropology, Mind And Body, Mechanism (Philosophy)--Controversial Literature

Table of contents

	Contents
	PREFACE	xvii
	PROLOGUE: WHAT IT IS FOR THE HUMAN BEING TO BE AN ANIMAL AND FOR THIS ANIMAL TO BE A SPIRIT	1
	Our meaning in saying that human beings are animals: animals are not physical mechanisms ,	1
	Language as the animal form of intellectuality ,	5
	The question of the transcendence of human existence ,	9
	Observations on the wider context of our enquiries ,	11

	PART ONE: THE HUMAN BEING AS AN ANIMAL:
I.	OVERVIEW OF PART ONE: THE SAMENESS OF MATERIALISM AND DUALISM AND THE NEED FOR A HOLISTIC VIEW OPPOSED TO BOTH	19
1.	The sameness of structure of materialism and dualism: the inner/outer divide ,	23
2.	The psychophysical integration of the human being ,	29
3.	Hybrid facts and propositions: the logical aspect of holism ,	34
4.	The effects of the inner/outer divide: (I) the false chasm between the knower and the known ,	42
	(a) The predicament of explaining knowledge of the external world ,	42
	(b) How to get from knowledge of the external world to knowledge of other minds ,	47
	(c) The problem of how words referring to the mental have meaning ,	49

	(d) The problem of personal identity and knowledge by memory ,	51
	(e) The causal theory of knowledge generalized ,	55
5.	The effects of the inner/outer divide: (II) the false chasm between the agent and the world ,	57
6.	The hybrid nature of the human being: mechanistic explanation not fundamental ,	60
7.	Recovering the vision of the human being as a unity: the scale of the task ,	64
	Conclusion ,	67
II.	PERCEPTION (I): THE SHAPE OF A HOLISTIC VIEW	69
	1. The inseparability of perception and behaviour ,	69
	(a) Perception as in internal retrospective and prospective relation to behavioural disposition ,	69
	(b) The depth and contours of our rejection of atomism in respect of perception ,	72
	(c) The mistaken 'cinematograph' model of perception ,	75
	(d) The proper description of 'what is seen as it is seen' ,	78
2.	The privilege of the normal case ,	81
	(a) Mistakes arising from misconception of the 'standard' case: the need for a 'critical realist' account of perception ,	82
	(b) The pre-requisites of 'critical realism' as an account of perception ,	86
III.	PERCEPTION (II): CLARIFYING THE NOTION OF REAL COGNITIVE RELATION AND ASSESSING CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSION	94
	1. Contemporary accounts of perception remain bankrupt because they still sever it from behaviour ,	94
	(a) State of the problem: the revival of a non-realist conception of perceptual experience despite standing objections ,	94
	(b) The incoherence of the conception of experience as inner ,	96
	(c) The sameness in the epistemological impasse ,	100
	2. The value of the notion of intentional object ,	106
	(a) The need for the notion of 'intentional object' ,	107
	(b) Fallacious arguments drawing on the ambiguity of the term "object" ,	109
	(c) Rejecting any explanation of perception in terms of inner objects, and clarifying the contrast between perception and sensation ,	114
	(d) Looking as parasitic on the intentionality of seeing ,	116
	(e) The fundamental mistake in contemporary treatments of intentionality ,	120
	Note on the vocabulary of intentionality ,	125
	3. Perception as a real cognitive relation: the flouting of logical atomism ,	127
	IV. ACTION, EMOTION, AND SENSATION	131
1.	The unitary character of intentional action ,	135
	Note on the privilege of the normal case in the description of action ,	145
2.	The attempt to break up the holistic picture ,	151
	Note on some recent views ,	159
3.	Emotion and sensation ,	163
	(a) The character of pain ,	164
	(b) The emotions in general ,	167
	V. A NON-DUALISTIC ACCOUNT OF THE MEANING OF MIND-INVOLVING STATEMENTS	171
1.	Charting a way which avoids both introspectionism and behaviourism ,	171
	(a) Strawson's attempt at systematization ,	172
	(b) The sharing of states of knowledge and belief: the character of testimony ,	180
	(c) The treatment of memory and identity over time ,	182
2.	Our knowledge of others from their behaviour ,	185
	(a) The quasi-autonomous or truly mental character of mental states ascribed on the basis of behaviour ,	188

	(b) How we know mental states from behaviour: the presumption of normality and the stratification of criteria ,	189
	(c) Incipient behaviourism: the mistake of identifying mental states with behavioural capacities or practical abilities ,	192
	3. Avoiding the conception of inner sense ,	195
VI.	THE PRIMACY OF THE AGENT OVER THE EVENT IN CAUSATION	201
1.	The mythology of events and states as objects ,	204
	Note on the relation of adjectives and adverbs: counting and describing actions ,	213
2	The deceptiveness of logic: the limited logicians' sense in which events count as objects ,	215
	(a) The significance of objecthood in logic ,	215
	(b) The significance of identity statements about events ,	216
	(c) Summary of the logical situation ,	219
	(d) Rescuing the theory of explanation from the idea of events as objects ,	220
3.	The role of agency within explanation ,	223
VII.	NO PRESUMPTION IN FAVOUR OF MECHANISM: THE POSSIBLE AUTONOMY OF TELEOLOGICAL EXPLANATION	228
1.	The nature of teleological explanation ,	230
	(a) The structure of teleological explanations and their possible empirical backing; two notions of dispositions and natures ,	230
	(b) Teleology in the description of ends, and in the description of the conditions of the attainment of ends ,	233
	(c) The shape of causal explanation: dispositions and natures are not causes but marks of distinction between different modes of causal agency ,	235
2.	Misplaced methodological reasons for rejecting teleological elements in explanation ,	236

3.	Exorcising mechanism: its deceptive roots in the theory of meaning ,	243
	VIII. THE FIRST REFUTATION OF MECHANISM: PSYCHOPHYSICAL UNITY AT THE LEVEL OF EXPLANATION AND REALITY	249
1.	The significance of the role of identity statements in explanation ,	251
	(a) The limits to the role of convention in deciding questions of identity are set by considerations of explanation ,	251
	(b) Note on the concept of substance ,	256
2.	Wholes and parts: the Aristotelian conception of a natural whole or non-accidental unity ,	259
	(a) The interdependence of wholes and parts: the Aristotelian conception of a natural whole or non-accidental unity introduced ,	259
	(b) The aspectual character of scientific laws ,	263
	(c) The status of human beings and other animals as substances ,	265
3.	The incoherence of the theory that determinism and freewill are compatible ,	267
	(a) The form and strengths of the 'common-sense' position ,	267
	(b) The counter-claims made by physicalism ,	270
	(c) The incoherence of compatibilism demonstrated ,	273
	(d) The source of the beguiling plausibility of determinism and compatibilism ,	280
4.	No need to contrast appearance and reality when considerations of explanation give us access to reality ,	283
5.	The theory of explanation as disproving physicalism ,	286
	Conclusion ,	289
	IX. THE COMMUNITY OF HUMAN BEINGS WITH OTHER ANIMALS: FIVE ASPECTS	290
1.	The radical rejection of physicalism implied by our treatment of animal and human behaviour ,	290
2.	The psychophysical structures shared by human beings with other animals ,	297
	(a) The character of our knowledge of other animals ,	297
	(b) The character of psychophysical structures in animals other than human beings ,	301
3.	The focalized subjecthood involved by perception and judgement ,	312
4.	The human standpoint in perceiving and judging as a standpoint from inside the world: avoiding the Cartesian mistake ,	320
	(a) The way the perceiver is both over against and in the world: some contrasts with understanding ,	320
	(b) The way the judger is in the world as a background for considering how he 'stands above' the world: false models suggested by the consideration of seeing ,	323
5.	The intimacy of the unity between body and mind in human being and animal ,	326
	(a) The question of the nature of mind-body unity ,	326
	(b) The key position of the question of the character of perception, emotion and sensation ,	330
	(c) The human body as a 'body with organs': the importance of a material underpinning of animal function ,	336
	Conclusion of Part One ,	339
	INTRODUCTION	345
	X. LANGUAGE AND THE UNDERSTANDING OF LANGUAGE	351
	1: Language as what differentiates human beings from other animals ,	351
	(a) The peculiarity of human language ,	352
	(b) Why we pick on language as the differentiating feature of human beings: answers to objections ,	355
	(i) Objection that thinking can be in images, not words ,	358

	(ii) Objection that there are many unverbalizable forms of intellectual experience and activity ,	360
	(iii) Objection that it is the giving of reasons in deliberation which is the key differentiating feature of man ,	364
2.	Words as expressing, not identifying, meanings ,	367
3.	The integrated structure of language ,	377
4.	No calculation of meanings ,	384
5.	Linguistic understanding is not a mystery: the systematic mistakes shared by Dummett and by cognitive scientists ,	391
XI.	THE 'OBJECTS' OF THE MIND IN SPEAKING AND THINKING	398
1.	Language and thought do not represent the world: sentences, senses, and facts are not 'objects' to be in relation with one another ,	400
	(a) Preliminary critique of representational theories of meaning and thinking ,	401
	(b) Sentences, senses, and facts as 'cognates', not objects ,	405
	(c) Force internal to sense and to thought: no thought without attitude ,	409
2.	Abstraction and judgement: the capacity to use general concepts cannot be explained in terms of abstract ideas as objects to the mind ,	412
3.	The misconception that images are objects and the way the imagination enters into thinking and understanding ,	420
4.	The nature of thinking compared with speaking: words are not images in thinking ,	434
	(a) Words do not figure as images in thinking ,	435
	(b) The unity of the thought ,	440
	(c) The 'allusiveness' or intentionality of thought ,	445
XII.	THE SECOND REFUTATION OF MECHANISM: LINGUISTIC UNDERSTANDING AND THINKING HAVE NO BODILY ORGAN	447

1.	Summary statement of four main lines of proof ,	448
2.	Subsidiary comment on these four lines of argument ,	455
	(a) Key to first proof: thinking in the medium of words is material in its expression, not in its operation ,	455
	(b) Key to second proof: the 'principles' of intellectual operation in speaking and thinking can have no material embodiment or realization ,	458
	(c) Key to third proof: the understanding of langue and the understanding of parole can have no material or neural correlate or element internal to it ,	461
	(d) Key to fourth proof: the structures of self-reflectivity internal to language, and implicit in every utterance, cannot be exercised through a material organ ,	466
	Note: The acceptability of speaking about thinking and understanding as 'operations' or 'states' ,	472
3.	Notes on the roles of neurological subsystems and computer simulation in cognitive science ,	474
	XIII. ANIMAL AND HUMAN SOULS: TWO NON-DUALISTIC CONCEPTIONS	480
1.	The phenomenological conception of soul ,	481
	(a) The sense in which the body 'does not obtrude' in operations of soul ,	482
	(b) From 'operations of soul' to 'soul' ,	486
	(c) The non-Cartesian character of this conception of soul ,	492
	(d) Conclusion ,	495
2.	The Aristotelian conception of soul as the form of the living bodily thing ,	496
3.	The relation of the Aristotelian and the phenomenological conceptions ,	499
	(a) Background of the question ,	499
	(b) The objection that the identification of the phenomenological soul with the soul as form constitutes a category-mistake ,	504
	(c) Response to this objection ,	506
XIV.	HOW HUMAN BEINGS TRANSCEND THE BODY: FIRST EXPLANATION -- THE TRANSCENDENCE OF THE HUMAN SOUL	512
1.	No a priori argument to the existence of souls as subsistent ,	513
2.	The human soul in the phenomenological conception as subsistent ,	516
	(a) The existence of non-bodily operations of soul as the basis for argument to its subsistence ,	516
	(b) The idea of the human soul as the 'least amongst intellectual substances' ,	519
	(c) Recovery of the phenomenological sense of the 'doctrine' of soul: the soul as 'laid bare' to whatever language lays it bare ,	522
3.	The explanation of human unity ,	523
4.	The objection that this view re-erects a false contrast between human beings and the other animals ,	528
	XV. HOW HUMAN BEINGS TRANSCEND THE BODY: SECOND EXPLANATION -- THE TRANSCENDENCE OF THE HUMAN BEING AS SUCH	532
1.	Introductory Remarks: reasons for seeking an alternative approach which explains human transcendence without reference to soul ,	532
2.	Existence, activity, and actuality ,	533
3.	The existence of human beings, and its transcendence of matter ,	537
4.	The human situation and human nature as co-ordinate, and both as revealed by language: the question raised by death ,	542
	INDEX OF NAMES	553

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The Human Person: Animal and Spirit

by David Braine. 560 pgs.

publication details

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